Feminine Diablo Unveiled at Blizzcon

Posted By: October 20, 2011

We reported earlier the contents of this year’s Blizzcon goody bag and now a larger image of the front cover of the show floor map has surfaced (thanks popez). This image will also be the official poster for the event. Centre and front is a full frontal of Diablo and there is no getting away from it, those are some child-bearing hips ‘he’ has there.

There have been previous mutterings regarding Diablo’s gender. Back in 2009, also at Blizzcon, one of the Pay Per View broadcasts showed a model of Diablo for the official cinematic which looked decidedly feminine. Later, at this year’s Gamescom there was some street art organised by Blizzard which showed a very slim Diablo with obvious hips. For the most part, this was simply put down to the artist’s interpretation, but looking at this latest in-house piece of art, the street artist could well have been working from official concept art. More recently the portrait pictures from the beta show a Diablo with a very delicate jaw line (that’s a spoilerific page btw).

So, what’s the story here? Plot twist? Concept artist with a penchant for hips or too much oestrogen in the local water supply?

Look through those pandaren pieces in warcraft and personal… almost all of them have pony tails and some of them have hair down to their shoulders… also there’s the possiblity that it’s a female pandaren…

The three have always taken on physical characteristics of their mortal hosts… seems pretty in line with the story to me…

It’s probable that Leah – being the daughter of the Dark Wanderer – has some part of Diablo’s spirit/essence residing inside of her and that is brought out and Diablo is resurrected despite having his soulstone destroyed…

Except with the world stone gone they shouldn’t have to possess anyone and should be capable of coming to sanctuary in their true forms. Also weren’t the three only able to possess people by using the soul stones? Diablo’s was broken just like the other twos.

You didn’t read what I said did you? Diablo wouldn’t need to use a soulstone if part of his soul was implanted in Leah when she was conceived by Aidan (with Diablo already corrupting him) and Adria… The soulstones were destroyed and the spirits of the three were cast into the void… Destroying the soulstones was supposed to be the way of completely defeating them, but they obviously needed a story device to bring back the series’ namesake and so they came up with the character of Leah and her origins (which is why they retconned the identity of the Dark Wanderer) so they could by-pass the soulstone problem and resurrect Diablo through her… It’s definitely more clever than the alternative which would be completely retconning the implications of destroying the soulstones and saying that the previous heroes didn’t really defeat the three at all… Plus it’s a plot device they’ve already kind of used before in the original Warcraft with Medivh being corrupted by Sargeras while in the womb and Metzen likes to reuse story elements in different franchises (compare Kerrigan and Arthas for instance)…

I know what’s going to happen.
See, Leah is going to be captured by the demons and they’re going to mutate her into a super-villain to lead their armies across the lands of Sanctuary.
Meanwhile, our hero is going to have to free her from the . . .

Maybe Jim Raynor still has the artifact he used to un-Zerg Kerrigan. Or maybe if we kill the Lich King enough times, the Scourge’s hold over Leah will be broken.
NONSENSE CROSS PROMOTION CONFIRMED FOR DIABLO 3.

Minus the “out of control” hyperbole I sort of agree. I’m all for equality and stuff, but I’m so tired of this mixture of sexism, insecurity, mysticism and… subservientness that nerds show towards women. It’s a medieval fantasy, women in that context are either cleaning, cooking or needing protection. And the only specifically female demon I’m aware of is the succubus which is incidentally also the least terrifying one (geddit? Terror?).

Well, tbh in actual medieval times, that was about the extent of a woman’s responsibilities. If anything, giving them the roles of powerful mages, archers, and warriors in games is a step up from real life.

Back since it is basically Blizzcon.
I have to say I have lost all faith in Blizzard if they are doing THAT with Diablo. Just how much more can they butcher the game?
As for the waiting I read something from someone while I was reading back news. It is like a hot girl that flirts hard then backs off whenever you try to ask her out/ask her out. She then acts interested again then keeps backing off. It is like you still want it but when it is done for TOO long the intimacy is gone. Sure you still want to date her/buy Diablo III, but the intimacy just isn’t the same as it would have been and the whole experience just doesn’t feel as amazing as it could have been.

Yes Duriel was the Lord of Pain… what we’ve seen of Diablo 3 seems to point to new minor demon lords (not necessarily part of the 7 prime and lesser evils) based on the seven deadly sins… the lord of gluttony (codenamed Dressage in the game files) could be the thousand pounder and those treasure bandits supposedly serve the lord of greed but this is all speculation for now…

So last series, our champion got possessed and we fought him as a prime evil and this iteration, its a strong likely hood the same thing happens. Seriously this is quality of story telling we are swallowing hook and liner? Fuck, this studio is shredding years of loyalty and any modicum of respect I have left.

A lot of you are taking this way too seriously. OMGWTF DIABLO IS A GURL?!?!
Get over it, really. It fits with the lore pretty well if Leah does indeed get possesed. And it might even be possible that this is one of the many forms we encounter in the game, who knows?
If I saw that Diablo irl, I would definitley still be terrified.
Maybe you guys need to chill the fuck out 😉

It’s She-iablo!!!! She’s got some big old hips! This makes sense to anyone whos married. When my wifes mad…oh boy look out! The Lord of Terror is a good description of what my wife turns into when shes mad at me 😀

Mephisto and Baal’s appearances were influenced by their mortal hosts… their real forms do not have such human-esque faces and torsos so why wouldn’t Diablo’s form have some characteristics of his hosts? Plus, this possession seems to be from within instead of through a soulstone so it may be different in nature and make him retain even more of the hosts characteristics… By the way, no one cares about your skewed judgement that this isn’t a real Diablo game and you certainly aren’t in a position to make that call… your opinion of what makes this game not a Diablo game is just as invalid as the next random person that has no real experience with the game and very little insight on the development process of it…

Even if it’s the case then the writers , the artist and the modeler of Diablo failed hard.

Anyone who has been playing Diablo series since 1996 can make that call. I’m one of them. Are you one of them? More importantly is there anyone from D3 team who is one of them?

And I know more than you when it comes to development of aRPGs. Because as a tester I have been in that development stage of an aRPG in the last 7-8 months and I guarantee you that stage will continue till mid 2012.

Compared to some of the stuff they’ve pulled in the past (Draenei retcon, end of SC2), making Diablo have a feminine form is really, really low on my nerd rage meter. For an incomparable demonic lord of unspeakable terror, gender is pretty irrelevant.

Why aren’t they intimidating? Or why can’t they be intimidating? The warping of the human form can be really uncomfortable to look at.
Gender is irrelevant in this case because Diablo never really seemed like the lord of TERROR. I always felt that title should’ve gone to Baal or Meph; they had far ‘scarier’ and more inhuman forms. Diablo’s entire look screamed destruction or anger or something. Terror is something insidious and creeping; maybe that’s the look they’re trying to go with diablo here?

I mean you gotta be f***g kiddin me. Seriously? This is THE point where this game is nothing but a joke to an old D1 veteran. I dont think I can reasonably follow this (yet to be released) title without running the risk of the D3 development team completely diluting the memories of amazing experience of the two prior titles. Call me whatever you want. I am 30 now and I know bullshit when I see it. There is really no hope in me left that this game will have any of the old school magic…

I think the latter, plus i would not say its the \industry\, there are studios out there who target more mature audience (so pls, abstract funboi dont counter me with its all about $$ now and gamemaking is a business, i know it is), the really disappointing fact is that one would think that blizzard has three different universes that seemingly cater to a different audience (wow, sc) and diablo would be the one for more mature, and in general hard-core, devoted (just like sc) fanbase, but no – we get the finger every second week with all this PR bullshit and decisions that outrage the community (or at least that’s how I personally feel I am being treated – like an idiot). This page is community and I would go so far as to say that the majority of visitors here are upset about the general vision and style in which d3 is being developed. Like I said, this does not have to be like this, example, to a Polish gaming community the witcher universe is a national treasure (the game is based on uber-popular novels enjoyed by fantasy lovers who hate \generic\ worlds like the one in Dragons Age, for example, and appreciate only the real, gritty, dirty, bad-ass universe. The developer, CR Red dug this, they pleased the community to the level of ridiculousness. The development was over 10 m USD. so no man, I dont think its the age. Its Blizzard and its self-righteous \used to be gamers, now $$ driven full-of-shit management. I would really love to see this go the other way, but I think this game will not deliver to the old-school gamers.

…Blizzard has made a number of stupid decisions with Diablo 3… The overly-stylized art direction, WoWish armor sets, no manual stat allocation, no skill points, etc.
Now we have a female Diablo; and please, spare me the video game logic here. The bottom line is this looks stupid.
Nothing says “Lord of Terror” like child bearing hips and a slim waist. And I’m liking the thong/bra “armor.”
Seriously Blizz, WTF? From the dark and bone-chilling atmosphere of the original Diablo to this?

I don’t think so… I don’t remember Diablo looking like a little boy or a man. He possessed a little boy (king leorics son) and a man (the diablo hero), but the bodies of king leorics son and the wanderer were ultimately destroyed.

Biggest QQ session ever. Now it’s a girl smearing your carcass gruesomely into the ground over and over. Stop whining
We’ve killed a male diablo twice now and were D1 and D2 diablos really all that scary? This diablo is going to be a FREAK – a twisted, shrill, FREAK, killing machine. Fear the unknown

It’s pretty obvious…they try to catter to mainstream (oversexualization – and here I thought it’s impossible to apply to Diablo himself and simplification) crowd…and we all know where that crowd has the biggest representation…so expect console annoucement to cement this travesty…

I’d hazard a guess that “Diablo” has become something altogether new – a combination of the three Prime Evils – fused together somehow after their deaths.

To me, it looks like it’s got one main head, and a mouth on each shoulder (three heads), and shares characteristics of each of the Prime Evils – Diablo’s spikes, colouration and tail, Mephisto’s more skeletal (and perhaps feminine) appearance and, Baal’s multiple limbs and claw-like appendages.

What better way to maintain control over the Lesser Evils than combining your powers into one uber-demon?

Of course, it could just be that Diablo’s now got a femal host, as others have speculated – perhaps the extra mouths are from the three times that Diablo has taken on a host? I guess only time will tell.

Just an observation I made for those thinking Diablo is out and Diabla is in… in the teaser cine’ & concept art we see Diablo and he has mouths on his shoulders, and now looking at this thing there are no mouths. Why would they flesh out Diablo and make us think hes in the game only to jump out, yell surprise and stuff more unicorns into the game?

Check out this link, Diablo looks badass!! sure ive seen some pics where he looks like a woman, but i think its because he somehow fused with, baal, mephisto, and andarial. Notice the andarial like arms and two mouths on his shoulders and mephisto shaped horns? something intense is gonna happen!